Nintendo: A Good Problem To Have

It’s no secret that Nintendo struggled in 2013. Despite the continued success of 3DS, Wii U sales were significantly lower than expected and profits are down. Instead of trying to cover it up by selling buildings and firing 10,000 employees, Iwata has come clean and said he needs to do better. The Blame Game has now become front-runner for GOTY 2014 with everyone becoming an expert on how the company should be run. Blah Blah Blah marketing. Hurp Durp Burp profits and IPs. Luigi should step down. There’s too much Mario. Pikmin is too weird. Iwata should be fired. The bottom line is; the world has changed and Nintendo should adapt.

So what should they turn into, this?

Should they make mobile games? They love new IP’s right? Here’s Super Morio!

Adopt a new business model?

OR… HOW ABOUT…

… THEY MAKE

THIS?

That looks like a great fucking game doesn’t it? Imagine if they released something like THAT? It would take some kind of dedicated custom hardware to pull off something like this. Well I have good news, the console and game both exist; and we should all be VERY GRATEFUL for it. In this embarrassing industry of mobile clones, swag reviews, microtransactions, Dorito dealings, tweet fights, AAA budgets, 30 minute end-credits sequences, comparison articles and armchair experts; Super Mario 3D World is the solution. This is the very core essence of gaming and has miraculously remained untainted for 3 decades. The only tragedy is websites who are too busy talking about somebody else’s business to talk about how wonderful this is.

Why is it that Super Mario 3D World is the problem and not other companies games? Why should Nintendo be like everyone else?

Why is THIS the solution? I don’t see any articles telling EA or Microsoft how to run their business when they are shitting on the very fundamentals of game design. Microsoft has gutted every single game on Xbox One and shoved micro-transactions into the very core of the games structure. What’s the result of that? 9/10 reviews for Forza 5, a game that is fundamentally broken and shat on an entire legacy of games. Why doesn’t the director of Turn 10 need to be fired? Because nobody has fucking heard of him.

A big point I see about Nintendo is they don’t advertise enough, and there’s one thing everybody complaining about this has in common. YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE GAME that nobody knows about. Nintendo’s marketing isn’t the greatest, and it’s significantly worse than Microsoft and Sonys. It always will be. That’s a shame, but marketing is not our problem and whether Casual Joe plays Pikmin 3 or not is not our concern. We know Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 exist, but we don’t talk about them enough. Instead of bitching about how your friends don’t know about Pikmin 3, invite them over to play co-op.

If gaming journalists did their job, people would know which games are great. Everybody would know about The Wonderful 101 if it got great reviews and won 80 GOTY awards. Which it fully deserved by the way, it’s the most action packed game ever made by a ridiculous margin. Appearing in an “overlooked games” feature in 10 years time is not good enough. If journalists stopped tugging their dicks and enjoyed the fact they play videogames for a living, they wouldn’t be so concerned about what they aren’t playing. Wii U was trending on Twitter for the first time in ages when Nintendo released their bad financial report. Why are we even talking about that? It doesn’t affect our gaming experience in the slightest.

Nintendo has problems, but the trend with Nintendo’s mistakes is simply incompetence. The VC is empty because they are too slow and don’t have enough people working on it. HD development took longer than they expected. They have to localise Square-Enix’s games for them because Square-Enix forgot how to do anything. They don’t know how to make a new F-Zero because the SEGA team from F-Zero GX is dead. They can’t bribe third parties because they give them too much credit to make decisions. Their online system is very conservative because people have their mouths wide open on the sidelines ready to sue them. Mario Kart 8 and Donkey Kong didn’t arrive last holiday season to “Save the Wii U” because Nintendo wanted to finish the games properly, games that will be cherished for decades. They will catch up to all these problems and continue delivering the greatest games ever made. What’s that you say, LTTP is in 50hz on Europe’s Virtual Console? Throw the bastards in jail. Sony has the exact same problem with PS1 games on the PSN Store, at least Nintendo is kind enough to create a social network for you to directly complain about it. Be careful with that or Nintendo will shut it down like SwapNote.

Nintendo’s games are still as strong and fresh as they’ve ever been. People are playing them less because the landscape has changed, with mobile apps rotting people’s brains and a flood of misinformation, bad journalism and viral marketing taking over the media. Nintendo’s even smart enough to know this, the entire reason Nintendo Direct exists is because they don’t trust the media to do their jobs. It’s not just gaming, the entire world is suffering an identity crisis. But you know what?

I have a Wii U and 3DS and I don’t give a shit who doesn’t. It’s not my problem. Pikmin 3 is outstanding and possibly my favourite Nintendo game ever. A Link Between Worlds is a phenomenal new approach to Zelda games and plays like buttered tits. Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Mario all received excellent new games last year; the franchises are at their very peak. Luigi’s Mansion 2 was a huge effort by Next Level Games and towers over the first game. Super Luigi U has some of the best level design in 2D platforming history. Fire Emblem is the strongest it’s ever been, it’s finally successful outside Japan and has a bright future. Nintendo funded and helped develop their first open-world game in Lego City Undercover and it’s amazing. We got Super Metroid for 30 cents. We got the brand new ridiculous IP everyone asked for in The Wonderful 101. EarthBound has finally been re-released, and officially released in PAL countries with thousands of people (including myself) playing it for the first time. If you talked about 2013 a decade ago people would be frothing at the mouth. It’s fucking real and you need to wake up, stop whining and enjoy NINTENDO games for what they are. Just games. Not marketing plans, not business decisions, not threats to your identity. JUST games. That’s all they are. That’s all Nintendo will ever be, a videogame company. Absolute pure, unfiltered joy. Year after year after year. Games. Games. Games. And you know what? That’s enough.

128 thoughts on “Nintendo: A Good Problem To Have”

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I agree with everything, but you miss the part about the user experience and the Wii U as a product.

Yes, they have great games. Yes, their marketing is spotty. But just looking at the console name any marketeer realizes that this product is a hard sell. It’s confusing. Is it an expansion of the Wii? Is it a portable tablet? (I thought it was during E3) Does it need a box? Does it connect to the Wii? I can control it with the old controllers? I can play on two screens?

The answer to all these questions — which pop up in people’s heads when buying something at GameStop is “nah, I’ll get this tablet with Angry Birds”.

This is amplified when those of us — loyal Nintendo fans — have a really crappy experience with the actual box. Remember the first-day update? If you’re in Europe, try buying anything on the store. I dare you. Try to add friends. Try to play online.

The experience is just poorly designed. This is why I don’t even want to suggest the Wii U to anyone, because I just don’t use it anymore, except for the obligatory first-party hit game.

They got the content. It’s their strongest asset. They messed up the product and communication around it (marketing).

I believe the only way they can succeed now is to just rebrand the Wii U — with a hardware/visual design upgrade — and build proper marketing around it. And please redesign all of the software, especially online functionality.

I think this is by far our most commented article on this site, which is an accomplishment since we have also brought out NeoGAFfer armchair analysts who think they know how Nintendo should run their business and “get with the times” or redesign the WiiU. Or my favorite commenting dismissing this as Nintendo fanboy trash! Or how the WiiU’s power screwed itself over getting multiplatform ‘hits’.

To these people, I know your jimmies are being rustled right now because this is a positive article in the midst of Nintendoom and gloom. How about I bring in some… realities: how about that Sony killing off many of its own studios and laying off ten thousand employees? How about that Microsoft trying the bride YouTube users to advertise the Xbox One? How about all those development closures or the fact any success the PS4 has right now is negated due to the fact Sony’s debt is so high no amount of good profit can save it?

OH wait, these things aren’t related to Nintendo being bad people. My bad. Whelp, better sell my WiiU and get myself a PS4 which has no games and an actual DRM system in place because Sony doesn’t want you to sell or buy used games.

It’s embarrassing how people keep talking about what Nintendo should do (emulate Sony and/or MS or go mobile) while completely ignoring the problems with doing that.

To emulate Sony or MS means to blow billions of dollars a year and never turn a profit. That’s not sustainable. Not even by Sony or MS standards, which is why their investors are trying to kill their gaming divisions. They’ve finally gotten sick of all the losses with nothing to show for it. How can you sell 80+ millions systems and STILL come out in the red? How can TWO SEPARATE COMPANIES (2/3 of the hardware platform holders) do that in the SAME generation?

And as for going mobile, there’s absolutely 0 evidence that the market would be able to support a company like Nintendo without them having to fall back on ripoff tactics in order to actually make money. You know, like everyone else on mobile. Even then it’s more of a stop gap as when mobile gamers move on to the next big thing, the company that made the last big thing ends up in the trash can and is pretty much never heard of again.

Yet I never hear anyone posit a solution that isn’t one of those two. Nintendo is a different company from Sony and MS. They can’t be run like they are. If Nintendo had put out either of Sony or MS’ previous consoles, they’d be bankrupt by now. And yet people keep chiming in about how they need to be more like Sony and MS. SquareEnix has stated that the mobile market isn’t selling anywhere near what they were expecting it to and they release more remakes and ports of older games on mobile than anyone. Somehow that’s supposed to work out better for Nintendo if they’d just port their older games. Right…

I get that people don’t want to buy their hardware. There are honest reasons for that. But most seem to be more interested in destroying Nintendo in hopes of getting their games on the hardware that they approve of rather than simply accepting the idea that if you’re not willing to buy their hardware then you’re not going to get to play them.

I stopped buying PlayStation after the original PS1. I used to be a HUGE fan of SquareSoft. In fact, I purchased a PS1 specifically for Final Fantasy. I bought and played VII, VIII, and IX but when it came to X I decided that it wasn’t worth my money, or my ethics, to purchase a PS2. I didn’t spent days, weeks, months on the internet complaining about the fact that I couldn’t play FFX on my GC. Nope. I moved on. I simply let them go.

Apparently modern gamers aren’t willing to let Nintendo go. It’s either their way of the highway. Either Nintendo makes games for them on their terms and on their systems of choice or they’re going to drive them into bankruptcy so that no one can enjoy them. I know the rest of the industry is stagnant, bankrupt (morally, ethically, as well as financially), and pretty much anti-consumer but why should Nintendo have to suffer for all of that?

If you want to play Nintendo games then buy Nintendo hardware. It’s as simple as that. Otherwise… SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY! Or at the very least try and come up with an idea that isn’t so transparently idiotic as “COPY OR MAKE GAMES FOR SONY AND MS!” or “GO MOBILE!”

I bought every Nintendo console day 1 from the SNES through the Gamecube. Eventually I got a Wii in 2010 and after playing Mario Kart, Galaxies, Skyward Sword and New Super Bros Wii, the system basically became a VC machine only, as new 1st party games stopped coming out and any 3rd party game was better on PS3/360. I did like having the VC on the Wii though, as it was nice to go back and play some of those original Nintendo games I hadn’t played in over 2 decades, but it was a novelty that wore off.

As of now, I have no plans to get a Wii U. Sure SM3DW looks great, but so did Galaxies, and after I beat that in 3 days, I went back to playing games on other systems, and the Wii started collecting dust.

At this point I see no reason to get a Wii U, until its end of life, and you can pick up the 6-7 Nintendo AAA games that are released during the life of the system for cheap. As great as Nintendo was, and they’ll always be a special place for Mario and Zelda in the gaming world, as I entertainment company, Nintendo no longer offers me what I want, and I’ve moved on. And though I do enjoy the occasional Mario romp, that’s no longer enough for me to buy a dedicated console for Nintendo software, which is basically what the Wii U is becoming.

@Khushrenada
Nice job not reading my entire post and writing an obscenely long rant based on the portion that you read. You can sit there making excuses for Nintendo and the Wii U all you want, that doesn’t change the fact that it is failing, where as the PS4 and X1 are succeeding. Nintendo has no reason to continue making home console, just as Sony has no reason to continue making handhelds. Just because no one has said it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It also doesn’t justify how horribly the Wii U is doing, so going off on that biased rant has served no purpose whatsoever.

Nintendo sold around 25 million GCs.
Sony sold around 150 million PS2s (to a market even MORE casual than the Wii’s)
Nintendo still made more money off the GC than Sony did off the PS2.
Who succeeded and who failed?

Nintendo sold around 100 million Wiis
Sony and MS both sold around 80 million of their respective systems.
Nintendo made billions off the Wii while Sony and MS will never recoup their losses.
Who succeeded and who failed?

(Hint: The answer isn’t “Sony sold more PS2s so they won” followed by “But Sony and MS got more 3rd party support so they won”. You know, moving the goal post to try and make Nintendo look bad because you can’t accept the fact that Sony and MS failed at console gaming before they even released their first systems.)

Like all Nintendo fanboys, you’re stuck in the past, clinging to their long lost glory. I’m looking at the present, and PRESENTLY, Nintendo isn’t doing well (and that’s putting it nicely). Stop denying it you worthless drone.

I read your post. In fact, I’ve read every post you’ve made because I keep hoping that you might actually finally respond to one instead of posting the same thing over and over and doing nothing to justify your posts or back-up your assertitions except to dismiss what people say and name call.

My post provided a justification as to why Nintendo is fine to carry on in the console market which you said you could see no reason for. I’m not sure what excuses you think I made for them as once again, you prefer to speak in generalities instead of specifics no doubt in the hope that will give you leeway to claim you meant something else when people call you on your posts. As well, you keep saying that PS4 and XB1 are succeeding without elaborating and that the Wii U is doing horrible. From what I can tell, this criteria only refers to consoles sold and who has more third party games.Again, it’s hard to know for sure if that’s what you mean since you won’t go into details about what counts as success and failure. Not surprisingly, when I questioned you what you meant and how going by sales doesn’t make something a horrible flop and something a grand success, you have made no effort to try and elaborate what criteria you are using but just keep repeating your generalities.

As well, my post wasn’t just about you which I am sure will come as a great shock since you seem to think everything people are talking about here now involves you. You did not say anything about 3rd party agnosticism. That was another poster and while I was posting about your point, it dovetailed nicely into that and I mentioned it as well.

Still, since you seem to be advocating the idea that was floated with a hybrid type console, in that Nintendo just makes a really strong handheld console and only makes games for that from now on, let’s use that to justify why Nintendo is still best to stick with a home console. Loss of market share.

How many people own a 3DS and a Wii U? How many own a 3DS and not a Wii U? How many own a Wii U and not a 3DS? Let’s be crazy and say the numbers are 10%, 85% and 5%. If Nintendo goes to a hybrid console, then does that mean the 5% of Wii U owners joins the 85% of 3DS owners when Nintendo only makes a handheld console from here on out? What happens to the 10% extra sales they had in making two seperate pieces of hardware? Both had potential for more growth and to increase in sales. Now that is gone because they will only buy 1 piece of hardware.

If Nintendo had went handheld only after the Gamecube, would they have made the money they made with 1 piece of hardware like they did with 2, DS and Wii? Absolutely not. The DS wouldn’t have had an additional 100,000,000 units sold because there was no Wii. Sure, the Wii U isn’t booming in sales but this kneejerk reaction of Nintendo must end home console sales because of this is completely shortsighted. It’s like if a championship team drafted a number 1 pick also that year. When the new season came around and that pick struggled, would you be happy if the team decided to just trade him away and cut him lose because he wasn’t performing to the standard of their other skilled players? Of course not. You realize it takes time for a player to adjust and reach their prime. Trading him away will give another team a greater advantage in future when your current players start to fade. Maybe the next few years will be a bit slow as Nintendo works things out for their next console. But to just give up the home console market is an even worse decison than some of the mistakes that have been made with the Wii U.

If you ever go into a business of some sort on your own, let me know so I can set up a business doing the same thing. Then, when your business has a slow period, you can give up doing it like you think Nintendo should and then I’ll take over a larger share to myself while you pat yourself on the back for being so “smart”.

You want me to elaborate? Okay. The Wii U has been out for over a year, and it is already about to be outsold by systems that have been out for two months. Nintendo obviously isn’t getting their big games out fast enough, and it certainly isn’t helping that aren’t accommodating developers as well as Sony and MS are. Pretending that they are fine right now helps no one, especially not Nintendo. With the 3DS selling as well as it is, they shouldn’t be LOSING money. Wasting time and money on the Wii U is flat out stupid at this point, and they would be much better off with just their handheld hardware.

You type out these long rants thinking you look smart and informed, when you’re really pull pro-Nintendo BS out of your ass. Like it or not, they’re struggling, and I’m just speaking my mind. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but don’t act as if I’m unjustified in my criticism.

“You type out these long rants thinking you look smart and informed, when you’re really pull pro-Nintendo BS out of your ass. Like it or not, they’re struggling, and I’m just speaking my mind. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, but don’t act as if I’m unjustified in my criticism.”

If that is what you want to call articulate and logical, that’s your prerogative. All I’m trying to do is post what I think, give reasons why and try to explain them as best I can. I think that is a better approach than trying to attack and criticize every other person who makes a comment on the matter.

“You want me to elaborate? Okay.”

Thank you.

“The Wii U has been out for over a year, and it is already about to be outsold by systems that have been out for two months.”

True. But isn’t this a knee-jerk reaction? I guess my next question would be about how you view Xbox. The Xbox 360 had a year lead on the Wii and yet the Wii overtook it for total sales and then dominated the market. So, once Wii surpassed the X360, shouldn’t Microsoft have viewed their console as a failure and quit making home consoles? After all, the original Xbox barely sold above the Gamecube and lost handily to the PS2. And now, they had just lost the market lead to the Wii which was a system with less graphical capabilities than the 360 and PS3. Would you have been on internet boards advocating that Microsoft give up the home console market back then?

“Nintendo obviously isn’t getting their big games out fast enough, and it certainly isn’t helping that aren’t accommodating developers as well as Sony and MS are.”

Again, Nintendo will accommodate developers in different ways. If you want them to spend money to a developer to bring over a game like GTA5 or Tomb Raider or whatever, they are never going to do that. At least, I don’t see that happening with the way the company is run now. They will help offer suggestions to companies and fund games like Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 as well as licence their franchises or characters to companies to use in games. As this very article we should be talking about and the reason for all this discussion even taking place mentions, “they have to localise Square-Enix’s games for them because Square-Enix forgot how to do anything.” Yes, the statement is a bit hyperbolic but the point still stands that Nintendo has been willing to take on costs for other developers when they don’t want to take that risk.

And frankly, there’s a whole other huge problem and discussion when it comes to third parties that I could go into but is irrelevant to what we are talking about. One point I will bring up is that it is easy to say Nintendo is the one at fault since that is what third parties will claim for not bringing their games over or why the sales were low. But there are 2 sides to every argument and 3rd parties also have a lot of blame they need to accept. Moreover, it is interesting how a company that will release games on a Nintendo system but then jumps ship or starts making games for the other two consoles will often end up in a worse position or belly up. This has happened over and over again. That right there is an indication that Nintendo’s hardware and the way they handle third parties isn’t all wrong.

“Pretending that they are fine right now helps no one, especially not Nintendo. With the 3DS selling as well as it is, they shouldn’t be LOSING money.”

They are also not in as dire a situation as you or most internet sites want to make it seem like. Could the situation be better? Of course. But the situation could also be better whether they were in first place and Sony and Microsoft were bombing. It could be better for the 3DS yet as well. Nintendo also didn’t meet their projected sales for the 3DS this holiday season either but no one focuses on that because people want to kill the Wii U. But clearly Nintendo expects more from it. I mentioned before that according to the IGN statistics, the Wii U has a higher software attachment rate than the 3DS. With the 3DS selling as well as it is, why aren’t there more game sales for it? How is the Wii U to blame for that? Let’s not forget, Nintendo cut the cost quite a bit on the 3DS to help it sell more and so they are making less on it than originally planned and there have been other sales on it over time so the money made on the hardware is not as significant as it could have been.

Finally, I’ll be honest, I don’t bother with a lot of this sales talk stuff since most of it really is irrelevant to playing games but I’m pretty sure that recent news articles about Nintendo say they posted a 99.7 million dollar profit for the year. Profit. How are they losing money? Shouldn’t they have had a deficit?

“Wasting time and money on the Wii U is flat out stupid at this point, and they would be much better off with just their handheld hardware.”

I explained a bit of my reasoning on this in my last post to you. Saying that continuing Wii U production is stupid isn’t a valid point or counter-argument to anything I said. This is the repetitive generality I spoke about you posting everywhere on this article of which counterpoints have been raised. If you can’t reason against them or “could but don’t want to”, then we’ll consider it as proof you are unable to but are too proud to admit it.

“Like all Nintendo fanboys, you’re stuck in the past, clinging to their long lost glory. I’m looking at the present, and PRESENTLY, Nintendo isn’t doing well (and that’s putting it nicely). Stop denying it you worthless drone.”

Wow… And you have cemented the fact that you’re unwilling to accept anything other than your own misguided world view. Nintendo’s long lost glory? You mean the year before last? And as for the present, both Sony and MS are going to post losses FAR greater than Nintendo is.

You see, time is fluid. Events that took place in the past effect events that take place in the present which in turn effect events that will take place in the future. Even if you were to completely remove the present from the past and the future, Nintendo is still doing better than both Sony and MS. Yeah, the Wii U isn’t selling as well but Nintendo also isn’t loosing anywhere near the amount of money that Sony and MS are.

So is Nintendo’s glory gone? Or did Sony and MS simply never have any to begin with?

Let’s take another slice of time since you seem to like to do that. How about November-December of 2011. The Wii U just came out and it’s selling millions of systems. The PS4 and the XBone by comparison have sold 0 respectively. UH OH! SONY AND MS AM THE SCREWED!

You need to look at the past to give context to the present in order to make predictions about the future. You cannot remove a single event and point to it as proof of something without the context that surrounds it. Saying the Wii U is failing because of current sales numbers means you need to completely ignore the fact that both the PS3 and the 360 also sold TERRIBLY when they first were released. Then there is also the fact that both the GC and the XBox sold terribly as well but MS still released the 360 and Nintendo still made more money than anyone else that generation.

Context is everything.

You have none.

Get some.

—

@CrowScythe:

“You Nintendo fanboys also have this misconception that Nintendo doing badly is invalid because other companies have lost money as well, which simply isn’t true no matter how you want to spin it.”

No, it has to do with the fact that Sony and MS have lost SO MUCH money and show no signs of every recouping it. Sega lost less money than either Sony or MS have and what happened to them? Historically, companies that don’t turn a profit tend to go out of business. You know how it works, I’m sure.

But somehow Nintendo needs to emulate them or start making games for them, even though their gaming divisions are HIGHLY unstable and can be shut down at a moments notice. You know, because they’re not making money and businesses don’t like it when they’re not making money.

I’m not saying Nintendo doesn’t need to make some changes, because they do, just that the changes that people are saying they should go through with would make the situation far WORSE than it already is.

If Sega were still around, had a well selling system and were posting regular profits with no debt then yeah, saying Nintendo should stop making systems and instead make games for Sega would actually be a viable course of action. But with Sony and MS the way they are today, no way. Their gaming divisions could LITERALLY be shut down TOMORROW if the share holders revolted and forced the companies to end them. Why in the world would anyone want Nintendo to work with such unstable companies?

Oh that’s right. You want to play Nintendo games but don’t want to buy their hardware because you’re “friends” might make fun of you.

“I don’t think they should change the way some people suggested either, so stop putting words in my mouth.”

Ahem…

“Or, they could do the smart thing and drop their miserable home consoles while continuing to create amazing handhelds.”

When you can answer why this is a good idea for Nintendo to do when they actually make money but not a good idea for Sony and MS who can’t turn a profit to save their lives, literally, you’ll know why you’re so angry.

We’re now up to 74 comments for this page and most of them are now coming from people thinking Grub’s article is un-researched bullshit that doesn’t fit in with their views. It was funny for a while, but now I’m just annoyed by it.

CrowScythe, just how old are you? The way you are putting yourself in this comment threads makes you seem like a socially awkward teenager who discovered NeoGAF on a whim. Your constant whining and bickering with quixoticsomnia who is presenting actual arguments even I have pointed out in the two previous articles I made and your replies calling us blind Nintendo fanboys presents you as an actual factual NeoGAF user. Even if we call you out on your bullshit on a constant basis you are well beyond understanding, and I can tell this just by how you are acting superior and talking down to us, calling us blind Nintendo fanboys.

Fuck that shit up the ass. Unlike NeoGAF mods and admins, I am less forgiving to this type of shit. You may be entitled to an opinion, but when you start talking down to us like a child who needs a slap on the wrist, well then that wrist will be slapped. But I’m a man who likes to have fun, so instead of banning you I will just replace all your comments and replies with links to funny YouTube videos.

I apologize if I was overstepping my bounds by continuing to interact with him. Sometimes it actually helps to focus my own ideas by talking with someone who is unable to grasp certain concepts. Basically, I learn how to look at something from a different angle and I think I realized what his issue is: He loves Nintendo handhelds but hates Nintendo consoles and I was actually looking forward to trying to glean exactly why that is. Why Nintendo remaining in the console business is somehow threatening their handheld market for him. I’ve never run into someone like that before. Though, as he’s stated before, he owns a 3DS but no 1st party games for it. It’s an interesting dichotomy.

Anyway, apologies all around if you feel that I have behaved inappropriately.

Whelp, CrowScythe accuses me of censoring his opinion but there is a difference between opinion and spouting childish bullshit and acting like a giant manchild, then furthermore accuses us of ass-kissing Iwata. Its so cute when a giant man child rittled with possible forms of autism thinks he’s so self-important.

Yet my patience wore thin with him. His IP address has been mark for spam and any post he makes will not be displayed. Sorry CrowScythe, I know I must be a giant meanie head to you, but you can go and have fun elsewhere.

Well I can see this place is full of objectivity and discussions. I post a legitimate statement about my feelings on the Wii U based on my experience with the Wii in response to this clearly biased piece of trash journalism, and its ‘GAFfy’ (whatever the hell that means).

If people are happy with what Nintendo is doing, good for them. I refuse to purchase another Nintendo console unless dramatic changes in terms of UI, price, and available software come about. And going by their current sales and drastic financial forecasts, more people are thinking along these lines then those buying the consoles.

Maybe the new “QOL’ device that Nintendo comes out with will be profitable for them? Because clearly the Wii U and 3DS aren’t, and all the money in the bank doesn’t change the fact that their business plan for the past 3 years hasn’t worked as well as they thought.

I see now that NewGAF is a video game forum. No Jimmies were rustled, I just don’t agree with the obviously biased pro-Nintendo article. I don’t think their games cut it anymore, at least not in terms of getting people to by a new console for them. Showing a picture of the new super mario bros game that looks no different then the previous versions I have on the Wii isn’t going to cut it. New IPs, more 3rd party support and exclusives, at least a passable online and VC service, and at least a $50 price drop, then I’ll take a look at the Wii U again.

You seriously banned me? Absolutely pathetic, but I guess that says more about you than it does about me.
Anyway, quixoticsomnia, I say Nintendo should stop making home consoles because it obviously isn’t helping them. They’ve always thrived on the success of their handhelds, so focusing on those rather than trying to salvage what has already been lost would be better for them. And you ask why I own no 1st party games on my 3DS? Simple, it has amazing 3rd party support that provides me with many excellent games to play, unlike their home consoles which are simply Smash Bros. boxes in my opinion.

Oh isn’t that cute, someone is calling me a coward. I’m sorry you didn’t understand the fact of why I banned you, but this isn’t NeoGAF and you didn’t bring comments onto this site. You instead created whiny shitstorms and talked down to people who were telling you why you were shit. Almost 50% of these comments are of you either insulting us as Nintendrones or getting pissy when someone calls you on your shit.

Huh, but looks like you have a work around to being banned. I’ll have to look into that.

Oh, so you haven’t been bombarding me with insults? You are so full of shit it’s almost sickening. If you weren’t a coward, you wouldn’t have banned me. But no, you got worked up over someone disagreeing with you and your kind, and decided to lash out like a child. I call it how I see it, and it’s is blatantly obvious that you are indeed a Nintendrone who is easily upset.

“I see now that NewGAF is a video game forum. No Jimmies were rustled, I just don’t agree with the obviously biased pro-Nintendo article. I don’t think their games cut it anymore, at least not in terms of getting people to by a new console for them. Showing a picture of the new super mario bros game that looks no different then the previous versions I have on the Wii isn’t going to cut it. New IPs, more 3rd party support and exclusives, at least a passable online and VC service, and at least a $50 price drop, then I’ll take a look at the Wii U again.

Until then, for those that already have one, I hope you enjoy it.”

I’m trying to figure out what’s so “obviously biased” about this article. It talks about Nintendo, that their games are still amazing, that the rest of the industry is tanking, hard, and trying to rip off consumers left and right and that that’s not a good direction for Nintendo to move in. What’s so biased about that?

You know what is biased? The way almost EVERYONE treated the Wii. For YEARS you couldn’t go on a single large or even medium sized gaming site without it being flooded with anti Wii articles. Either about how such and such developer hated the system or how such and such publisher called it “kiddy” and not worth their time or how it was a fad and was going to collapse any time now… any time… just hold on for a few minutes here… wait… wait… no… wait… come on… aaaaand… See? Fad! It only lasted longer than the GC or the XBox but I called it. FAD!

The only positive article that wasn’t begrudgingly written about the Wii was written as a joke. It talked about how the Wii was going to own the market and that Sony and MS were in serious trouble. And it came out before the Wii was even released because that’s how BIASED the ENTIRE games news environment is. No one was even willing to give it a fair chance because it had the word “Nintendo” on it instead of “Sony” or “Microsoft”.

You want to talk biased? You have an entire internet to deal with first before you can call a pro-Nintendo article on some random website biased. (No offense guys, but it’s not like your IGN or GameSpot afterall.) And in fact, why aren’t you there? Why aren’t you on IGN or GameSpot or any other of the dozens of highly biased news sites fighting the good fight and calling them out? No. Instead you’re here. What possible reason would you have for being here instead of there. Here, attacking a personal opinion piece rather than there, where rumors and statements by “anonymous sources” are run as if they’re the absolute truth.

Khushrenada
Why call me out for “attacking” people when even one of the editors on this site is attacking me for saying what I think? I didn’t ask you to explain what you think on the matter, because I don’t care, nor do I have a reason to. You, and many others on this site, seem to have a problem with what I think though, just because I’m not blindly praising Nintendo for not performing as well as they should be. If you don’t agree with what I have to say, whatever, no big deal. But I’m not going to sit here being lectured by some random guy on the internet. Also, where have you seen reports of Nintendo posting a profit for the year? It sounds like you literally pulled that out of your ass, since it hasn’t been said anywhere else. Right now, you seem to be arguing things that either aren’t true, or have nothing to do with what I think.

To be honest, I’ve only gone after you because I knew you’d be unable to respond back in any logical manner. Unsurprisingly, you’ve tried to dismiss everything I say as either commenting out of context and not reading your full post, as serving no point, as Pro-Nintendo BS, as me trying to sound smart, as not caring about what I have to say and that what I’m posting has nothing to do with what you think.

Other than that, you refuse to offer any explaination or reasoning as to what I’ve said is wrong nor have you tried to answer many of the questions I’ve asked of you to know what you think on the matter. You keep trying to post very little in that regard so it is easier to claim that anything people post has nothing to do with what you think since you never state much about what it is. But seem more willing to post about how wrongly you are being treated or that everyone here is a Nintendo fan unwilling to see the truth that only you have been blessed to understand so you’d better tell them so. Even this post is you trying to play the victim. Why attack me? I’m just trying to humble offer my opinion. Why is the world against me?

And if you didn’t care about what people said, you’d have never come back after getting banned. I know when I don’t care about something, I’ll try to keep on doing it despite any obstacles. But guess what? It’s a two-way street. If you don’t care about what I have to say, then I have no reason to care what you have to say. You say that if I don’t agree with what you have to say, no big deal. Yet, it is a big enough deal that if I or others don’t care with what you have to say, then you have to keep on posting more and more replies to everything. But I guess everything would be great if everyone didn’t bother to make a reply to what you say because it is “no big deal” while you replied to everything else everyone else said. Sounds like a good deal.

For that matter, why should anyone care if you were banned? After all, if you don’t care with what I think, I highly doubt you care what anyone else thinks. Therefore, you clearly aren’t coming here to post and have a rational or reasonable discussion since you have no interest in what others might have to say especially if they disagree with you. In that case, it is pointless to even listen to what you are saying or take any of it seriously. Frankly, a ban just makes sense then. You can call it cowardice but it’s actually logic. Cowardice is refusing to back up your own words and trying to find reasons out of doing so.

As for having a problem with what you think, some of it is fine but some is just weird. You like their handhelds but own no first party games on it and the only game you play on their consoles is Smash Bros. How is going handheld only going to make you suddenly buy their first party software? Why do you advocate Nintendo leaving the console market when you wouldn’t play anything they offer for a console except Smash Bros.? Sounds like you are going to buy another console anyways. You say they make great games but then you seem to dismiss them all. Do you even own a Wii U? The fact that you seem to be so dismissive of everything Nintendo does (except that they make great handhelds) makes it hard to take your opinions and suggestions seriously as to how they would improve following them.

Anyways, since you have 3 times decided to avoid getting into a discussion of what is a flop and success or why Nintendo is justified to stay in the market, there’s really no point in trying to go further. You clearly have no intention to do so and I feel that silence proves the points I’ve been making so I’m not going to beat a dead horse. It’s just further evidence of how engaging in all this business talk with other people is so useless and doesn’t accomplish squat. I’m better off just playing games on the Wii U.

I’m gonna break this down nice and simple for you, since you don’t seem to get it.
1. I didn’t ask you what you think, you asked ME what I think. I told you, and you didn’t find it acceptable so you continued to drown me in those walls of texts of yours trying to make a point I have no interest in. You have a problem with what I said, not the other way around.

2. Any reference to me being banned was either directly to the person who banned me, or to the person who told me to kill myself. Neither of which have anything to do with you or anyone else here, so I don’t expect you to care.

3. Really don’t know what was going through your head when you asked why them going handheld only would “suddenly make me want their first party games”. I neither said nor implied such a thing, because it isn’t true. I also didn’t say they make great games. I said third party developers make great games on their handhelds, which is why I own a 3DS. No I do not own a Wii U, because there are no games on it that justify a purchase in my opinion. Again, you asked me what I think, and I told you. Nothing more, nothing less.

4. How have I avoided the discussion? I have stated several times what I think, because I was asked more than once. Just because you don’t like my answer and want me to explain it in a different way doesn’t mean I have to, nor should I. If you can’t grasp a simple concept, that’s your problem.

I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with me, but I think you should really get over it.

Telling people not to complain is like telling Miley Cyrus to put some clothes on and stick her tongue back in her mouth.

In other words: It ain’t going to happen.

Besides, I don’t get to complain online much anymore. In fact, it’s been weeks if not months since I last got to complain about something online. I usually avoid it because, as you can see, there’s too many people out there who think they know everything and absolutely refuse to listen to anyone else because, well, they think they know everything.

I’ve thought along that the real problem is not Nintendo, but gamers having shit taste in games nowdays. The charts are full of drivel like Fifa, COD, Just Dance, this is their bread and butter, This generation of gamer is reared on mediocrity, and paying for things like online play, micro transactions, and games that require patches, or movies pretending to be games, they think they’ve got it good. But Nintendo and Nintendo gamers who are used to quality know the truth, the majority out there like shit games.

If Nintendo wanted to do well in the console industry in this day and age, it would have to be like the other game developers out there, this means dropping there standards to a insanely low level and making their games brown and shooty bang bang, or release them with dodgy frame rates and bugs and girls with hardly any clothes, or dance games for the people who can’t sit still for two minutes. Or sports games for the guys who think playing them and shooters make them more attractive to the opposite sex. At this point the talented people at Nintendo would probably want to kill themselves, or move into another line of work like Furniture making as gaming will have become too depressing for them..

Nintendo are so far ahead of other game developers in terms of genius and talent, that it’s gone right over all these new generation of gamers heads who only know a diet of feces and urine. Nintendo either lower their standards and become shit like everyone else, or they have to somehow brainwash gamers into liking good high quality games again , like we did in the old days.

Just to add a further comment to prove my point that gamers are infact insane which is dangerous for highly talented people like Nintendo. Someone on NeoGaf said Nintendo have no business making console games anymore as they lack new ideas and don’t know what gamers want,, and a lot of people actually agreed with him. The fact that Nintendo released arguably the best game last year in Mario 3D Worlds, or the sublime Pikmin 3, and got games like Wonderful 101 on the system means nothing to these people, they turn their nose up at these high quality great games.

Yet this same crowd will lose their shit over new screen shots of something like Killzone or Drive Club or more INfamous. Two sequels and a car game, Killzone is a generic shooter that gets average scores, and everyone leaves on droves online after a few weeks, has terrible characters, plot, the majority of the game is shit, yet these people buy it in their millions. Drive Club is another fucking racing game that looks like every other racing game out there, yet these people lose their shit over a new screen shot of a tire or a headlight. And INfamous is the most repetitive garbage series I’ve ever played on Playstation, it’s so shit they have to change the main character every game, and in every INfamous game, all you see is the main character jumping around like he has mad cow disease shooting fireballs out of his ass.

This is all this new gen of gamers want, brain dead shitty games with more guns and killin and racing. Games that Nintendo make are lost on these tards as they can’t appreciate fine art, it’s like bringing a drugged up chav to a art gallery, This is why Nintendo are in trouble, the drugged up chavs are taking over in massive numbers, in the gaming world, and they want Nintendo out as they don’t like nice things, they like shitty things. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t think it’s that the modern gamer has bad taste. I think it’s that they simply don’t have any taste to begin with. It’s been trained out of them to actually think for themselves and to expect to be treated with the respect that a paying customer deserves.

I’ve read far too many times and on far too many forums that if Nintendo gamers don’t purchase 3rd party games then 3rd parties won’t support them. Why should I have to buy crappy games just to get the support that Nintendo should already be receiving from them in the first place? Why should I bend over backwards for them to purchase their half finished, late released, or broken games, with little or even ZERO follow up support that every other platform receives, just to show that I support THEM? When are they going to prove to ME (you know, the paying customer) that they’ve earned MY support? I don’t remember Sony or MS gamers ever having to jump through any hoops like that.

The whole idea of how a market works has been flipped on its head, that somehow I’M the bad guy in all of this, and that if I would JUST give my money to those poor starving 3rd parties they’d actually be able to afford to support my platform of choice the way they should already be doing. *sniff* *sniff* How heartless of me to expect them to actually do their jobs…

It’s like the modern “core” gamer is a drug addict and Sony, MS and 3rd parties are their dealers. They seem to be willing to put up with whatever abusive relationship that they have to in order to get their next fix. If a near 33% failure rate of the 360 wasn’t enough to bring gamers to their senses and drive MS out of the console business then nothing will. It’s simply not something that you can fight. I mean, that’s cult levels of stupid.

If I found out that the Wii U had an issue like that and my system up and died on me, especially right after its warranty ran out, I’d simply sell my games and never look back. Are we really living in a world where a huge swath of gamers would rather be abused and treated like garbage just so they can play the next great and original FPS #4459 than to stand up for their rights as customers let alone as human beings?

“I don’t think it’s that the modern gamer has bad taste. I think it’s that they simply don’t have any taste to begin with.” -Quixoticsomnia (nice screenname by the way 😉 )

I agree. The gamers that supported gaming (in the truest sense of the subject) have all but stuck with their roots, meaning they have had to at least tip a hat to Nintendo. I’m sure there are still SEGA fans out there, too. But as far as Sony, and Microsoft, even moreso, go, THAT’S what is a fad. It’s a shallowly popularized industry now, with all the contrived contention and consumerism… which actually is quickly becoming The Industry vs. Nintendo (the Father of true gaming). I think it’s silly as fuck. Why don’t Sony and Microsoft just make a third system, make it small, and call it “Our Little Son.” Give me a break.

It is clear that the current generation of 3rd party devs do not care for Nintendo anymore, at least on the home console front. Nintendo needs to tell them to shove it seeing as they have already did so themseleves to Nintendo. They should create their own 3rd party devs by courting indie devs. I plan on myself to start making video games myself by the end of year and seeing the dire state of the WiiU, may try a hand at making games for it. Its time for supporters of Nintendo to stand and do something.

Thanks for this article. I thought I was one who didn’t need woken up, but you seem to be on the cutting-edge of the industry’s goings-on and I see what you’re writing about as like a sea change all around Nintendo. I’m not really all that worried about Nintendo’s situation now.
I makes me want to go buy a fucking Wii-U is what it does…